Ever Heard Of A Guy Named Spiderman?



To quote Desi Arnaz,"Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do!"

I asked my very good friend the other day, "Susan, you understand why I say Spiderman/Peter Parker is my alter ego, right?" To my shock, she had to honestly say she didn't quite fully get it. She was close in her understanding, but for her to not be dead on really surprised me, for this is a friend who really "gets" my metaphorical talk and explanations for everything. I thought surely, after all these years, she understood my deep passion for Spiderman and Peter Parker. So, after I fully explained all the deeper meanings behind my connection to Spidey, she said "Dianne...as a friend, I've got to tell you that you've really got to tell people this, or they will NEVER get all of that." She gently but honestly told me I was putting too big of a responsibility on people to go that deep, and the sad part was that by my not being direct and clear in my reasons for being a Spidey freak, there was a tremendous loss for everyone involved. So, back to my first line, this is why "I've got some 'splainin' to do!"

It all started when this same friend took me and my girls to see Spiderman 2 when it first came to the theatres. We were there for just for fun, no big deal, and I thought I was really there to make sure my kids had enough popcorn and coke. Well, what a surprise I was in for. I had not even seen Spiderman 1, so I was totally clueless. The movie began...I remember everything, but especially those beginning moments with the opening music and the flipping pages affect of a comic book. And so the story began. The next moments I remember having a huge impact on my mind was when Peter Parker tried to "give up" being Spiderman in order to live an "ordinary" life.


I vividly remember the scene of him in his bed and having a mental conversation with his deceased Uncle Ben, where Peter tells his uncle "Spiderman is no more...no more." Of course, the scene of Peter putting his Spiderman costume in the garbage floored me. Whoa. I mean, whoa. I thought...he can't do that...can he? But he did, and boy-oh-boy, were there consequences. Then, the train scene. Spiderman is trying to stop an out of control train from falling over the edge of a dead end road. Even as Spiderman, he has to make many attempts in order to succeed. Bashed and beaten, with his mask off, he collapses into the arms of the passengers who carry him to safety inside the train. They remark that he is "just a kid." That's right...just a kid, a person, a real man, flesh and blood, who has been given powers and responsibilities he must accept, responsibilities he cannot reject. When Peter finally comes to and puts his mask on so Spiderman can finish saving the world for that day, the web of my connection to Spiderman began in that instant and it has been weaving ever since.

So, here it is. I have so very often wished I could take off my superhero mask and just do whatever I want. It's not that I feel this burden to save the world, but I do feel daily burdens that keep me from just doing things my soul yearns for, as I know we all do. It's just the way it is. Sometimes I wish I could "throw away" my Spidey outfit and just carelessly bounce around the world. But that would last about a day before I would see how selfish and wrong this would be. The fact of the matter is we've all been given great individual powers, and with those come great individual responsibilities. Spiderman gets to do his work with an actual mask on...we don't. In many ways, this is what makes us all even more superhero like than him. "With great power comes great responsibility." Peter sacrificed the life he thought he always dreamed for for what he was actually destined to do. This is why he is my alter-ego.

The world loves Spiderman, but has no idea who Peter Parker is. Every day, humans are doing things that change the world in a Spiderman kind of way, but very often these are unsung heroes: fathers, mothers, teachers, priests, ministers, uncles, aunts, grandmothers, grandfathers, the list is endless. Here comes the cheesy part, sorry: we are ALL like Spiderman. We are. We do things that are heroic and superhuman everyday, but it's very often when we are wearing our masks of responsibility that we do these things. Just because the world doesn't know who we are doesn't mean we are not changing it, or doing super-heroic things in our own little worlds. This is why I love Spiderman and all that he represents as a super-hero. And this is why I say Spiderman is my alter-ego, or better that I should say I strive to be like him.

I guess after writing all of this I can see now why it would be a stretch for someone to just get all of this because I have a poster of Spiderman hanging on my wall. To think that all this time people might have thought I just have a thing for guys in tights. Yikes. Yeah, I get it now. Thank you, Susan, for being a true friend and being honest with me. That was mighty super-heroic of you.

Dianne Perea